Lee, sometimes I joke around, but I never attack anyone personally. At times, I disagree with your assessments and viewpoints on basketball, but that's where it ends.

The fact that you are a diehard Pistons fan makes you okay in my book. I love playing basketball, coaching basketball, and watching Pistons basketball. This web site brings together all kinds of different people, but we all share a love of the Pistons. As we "hang out" here and become friends, we learn about other things we have in common (tennis, running, etc.).

Anyway, sorry to rub you the wrong way with my "humor".

I have lots of opinions, by the way. What do you want to know?

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The post was my version of light humor. Talk to you more on basketball when the pre-season starts.

Chicago fans, who have seen a lot more of Gordon, say that him at PG for more than 10 min is a very bad idea.
White was outplayed by Sosa in SL, he might turn out to be a good player in the league, but at this point he might not even make the team, let alone start at SG over Rip and BenGo.
I never knew J-Max is a SF, don't think he even knows it.
Big Ben & Monroe starting up front is realistic, if Wallace will play like last year.

Forget developing youth. Forget keeping minutes down and players fresh for the playoffs.

Forget reality.

Here is what you get:

Stuckey, Rip, Tay, CV, Ben Wallace start, and basically play 38 minutes each on average right out of the gate.

This leaves 50 minutes of floor time for the remaining 8 to 10 players.

If our top draft pick does not play, nobody will hear the end of it, so lets say he gets 10 of those minutes.

10 for Daye, 10 for JJ. None for Summers. None for White.

15 for Bynum.

5 for JMAX.

None for Wilcox. Kwame is gone. Atkins is gone. A couple of players will be added for depth, but will not play.

What will we get: A few wins out of the gate. By midseason, the team will be riddled with nagging injuries, but yet the starters will be playing thru those injuries and losing all the games. 2nd half of the season, some starters finally sit, replaced by guys who hardly played to that point, and we just continue to lose.

Another perhaps 30 win season.

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Yea that sounds about right. Q trying to squeeze as many wins by playing conservative.

But it can't happen - can it? They have to sell tickets and few will pay to see that.

Forget developing youth. Forget keeping minutes down and players fresh for the playoffs.

Forget reality.

Here is what you get:

Stuckey, Rip, Tay, CV, Ben Wallace start, and basically play 38 minutes each on average right out of the gate.

This leaves 50 minutes of floor time for the remaining 8 to 10 players.

If our top draft pick does not play, nobody will hear the end of it, so lets say he gets 10 of those minutes.

10 for Daye, 10 for JJ. None for Summers. None for White.

15 for Bynum.

5 for JMAX.

None for Wilcox. Kwame is gone. Atkins is gone. A couple of players will be added for depth, but will not play.

What will we get: A few wins out of the gate. By midseason, the team will be riddled with nagging injuries, but yet the starters will be playing thru those injuries and losing all the games. 2nd half of the season, some starters finally sit, replaced by guys who hardly played to that point, and we just continue to lose.

Another perhaps 30 win season.

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I think that minute projection is a little too negative.

No body on the team averaged more than 38 minutes per game last year.

Ben Wallace is probably only playing 28 minutes, as he did last year, and CV averaged less than him. But those minutes trickle down to JJ and max, probably not summers.

Rip I think is starting to show his age, he played less than 38 minutes in his last ten games last year, and played more than 38 in only 3 games after february. This year hopefully will pick be just the same with minutes in the high 20's, low 30's, if only to prevent injury and protect his trade value. Those minutes will probably go to Gordon who isn't mentioned.

This year will be a wash until a trade happens. I wonder if they are waiting to trade stuckey? Maybe that is why the pistons are putting all this emphasis on Bynum?

Chicago fans, who have seen a lot more of Gordon, say that him at PG for more than 10 min is a very bad idea.
White was outplayed by Sosa in SL, he might turn out to be a good player in the league, but at this point he might not even make the team, let alone start at SG over Rip and BenGo.
I never knew J-Max is a SF, don't think he even knows it.
Big Ben & Monroe starting up front is realistic, if Wallace will play like last year.

That's a superbench. It would be a good consolation to losing to know that we have the best bench in the league.

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Losing? I can tell you this, if Dumars uses the remnant of the tired out team that won in 2004, six years ago, to try to get wins, he won't. Rip is too old to start for us. We are a rebuilding team, and rebuilding teams don't get good by letting aging vets be too big a part of things. Tay has never been able to play major minutes, and he just getting older. Ben Wallace, if healthy at the beginning of the season, won't stay healthy playing major minutes. Let these three come off the bench, helping to form a great bench - while exploring other options for our team of the future.

Losing? I can tell you this, if Dumars uses the remnant of the tired out team that won in 2004, six years ago, to try to get wins, he won't. Rip is too old to start for us. We are a rebuilding team, and rebuilding teams don't get good by letting aging vets be too big a part of things. Tay has never been able to play major minutes, and he just getting older. Ben Wallace, if healthy at the beginning of the season, won't stay healthy playing major minutes. Let these three come off the bench, helping to form a great bench - while exploring other options for our team of the future.

We are a rebuilding team, and rebuilding teams don't get good by letting aging vets be too big a part of things.

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I'm going to play devil's advocate on this one. I think this conception is a fan myth. I'd be interested to see some examples of "rebuilding teams" that eventually won a championship or had significant success that didn't let vets be a big part of things.

I'm going to play devil's advocate on this one. I think this conception is a fan myth. I'd be interested to see some examples of "rebuilding teams" that eventually won a championship or had significant success that didn't let vets be a big part of things.

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You left our the word aging. Ben Wallace is getting too old to count on him for winning a championship a few years down the road. Rip's game is all about him scooting away from his defender to get free for a shot - how long can he stay healthy at his age doing that for extended minutes? Project 3 years from now, and do you really think Rip is the guy you want still being our starting shooting guard?

Tay is not that old - but he might as well be with that back of his. Light minutes would make him very effective for us all season long - coming off the bench. Playing him major minutes - you get nothing but losses.

Look to the guys who will still be young and healthy in three years and build on that.

I'm going to play devil's advocate on this one. I think this conception is a fan myth. I'd be interested to see some examples of "rebuilding teams" that eventually won a championship or had significant success that didn't let vets be a big part of things.

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Our championship team for 89 and 90 was built on the concept that there was always room to try out each player, rookie or vet, to see what they could contribute. Never did we use the excuse that the vets needed minutes to not give someone a chance to play as that team got built up. Took a long time, but we got there.

In 2004, lets imagine that Carlisle was still our coach - and that Carlisle magically became as good a coach as Larry Brown - except for one blind spot - he still loved older players. And Curry got to start once again at small forward for us - letting Tay play, but not enough to get prepared for that championship run. And lets say we kept Cliff Robinson, cause Carlisle just loved the guy, and we never traded for Sheed.

Letting Curry play, an aging vet, was crazy, not something that helped build up our championship team. He was brought here by mistake, already washed up. (Apparently something about trying to get Hill to sign.)

OK, so Curry was an extreme case of how not to manage a team. Look at the rest of our 2004 championship team. It was put together to win when - now. We finished our "rebuilding" with the signing of Sheed - and look at how young we were. None of our starting 5 was over 30 years old. We did not know if we could win that very year - but we had a starting five all young enough to make a great effort toward a championship for years to come.

Other teams have made successful tries at using vets to win a championship - but only if they were right there at the cusp; never looking 3 years down the road. Karl Malone was brought to the Lakers to win that very year - not 3 years later. Hey, maybe if Malone had not had an injury, the Lakers might just have succeeded against us.

Since 90, The Bulls won it six times on the back of a young MJ, a young Pippin. Can you give an example of a player in Chicago who was an older vet that got played to the extent that rookies on the team did not get a chance to play? Was there a guy like Rip, who maybe was about 32 in 1987, that was a major part of the team until 91 when Chicago won?

Boston made it - with hiring some aging vets - but they won very quickly. They brought those aging vets aboard to get them over the top. Before that, they were playing their young guys a lot to see who could do what. No way they brought in guys already aged a few years before, let them get all the minutes, and neglected developing the youth.

So, let me define playing aging vets too much - its when they play minutes to the point that you don't develop your younger players. Remember, when you develop a young player - that does not mean you have to keep them. They might not fit what you need. But you can make a trade for what you do need - trading away those young players who have gained value by playing.

Now lets see how not to manage a team. Can you name a player who we have traded for where we got the player after developing a young player to get trade value?

Our championship team for 89 and 90 was built on the concept that there was always room to try out each player, rookie or vet, to see what they could contribute. Never did we use the excuse that the vets needed minutes to not give someone a chance to play as that team got built up. Took a long time, but we got there.

In 2004, lets imagine that Carlisle was still our coach - and that Carlisle magically became as good a coach as Larry Brown - except for one blind spot - he still loved older players. And Curry got to start once again at small forward for us - letting Tay play, but not enough to get prepared for that championship run. And lets say we kept Cliff Robinson, cause Carlisle just loved the guy, and we never traded for Sheed.

Letting Curry play, an aging vet, was crazy, not something that helped build up our championship team. He was brought here by mistake, already washed up. (Apparently something about trying to get Hill to sign.)

OK, so Curry was an extreme case of how not to manage a team. Look at the rest of our 2004 championship team. It was put together to win when - now. We finished our "rebuilding" with the signing of Sheed - and look at how young we were. None of our starting 5 was over 30 years old. We did not know if we could win that very year - but we had a starting five all young enough to make a great effort toward a championship for years to come.

Other teams have made successful tries at using vets to win a championship - but only if they were right there at the cusp; never looking 3 years down the road. Karl Malone was brought to the Lakers to win that very year - not 3 years later. Hey, maybe if Malone had not had an injury, the Lakers might just have succeeded against us.

Since 90, The Bulls won it six times on the back of a young MJ, a young Pippin. Can you give an example of a player in Chicago who was an older vet that got played to the extent that rookies on the team did not get a chance to play? Was there a guy like Rip, who maybe was about 32 in 1987, that was a major part of the team until 91 when Chicago won?

Boston made it - with hiring some aging vets - but they won very quickly. They brought those aging vets aboard to get them over the top. Before that, they were playing their young guys a lot to see who could do what. No way they brought in guys already aged a few years before, let them get all the minutes, and neglected developing the youth.

So, let me define playing aging vets too much - its when they play minutes to the point that you don't develop your younger players. Remember, when you develop a young player - that does not mean you have to keep them. They might not fit what you need. But you can make a trade for what you do need - trading away those young players who have gained value by playing.

Now lets see how not to manage a team. Can you name a player who we have traded for where we got the player after developing a young player to get trade value?

I guess I was responding more to the knee-jerk reaction that some people have to get rid of Tay and Rip for its own sake. If it can legitimately be shown that they are over the hill and hindering a younger better player, then I'm all for it. I'm just not sure that we're really there, yet. Rip is still good enough to have been the team's leading scorer for the past few seasons. I don't care how many plays we run for him, you have to be good to be the team's leading scorer. I don't see anybody else on the roster capable of doing that yet. Stuckey might be close, but that's another debate.

"So, let me define playing aging vets too much - its when they play minutes to the point that you don't develop your younger players. Remember, when you develop a young player - that does not mean you have to keep them. They might not fit what you need. But you can make a trade for what you do need - trading away those young players who have gained value by playing."

"Now lets see how not to manage a team. Can you name a player who we have traded for where we got the player after developing a young player to get trade value?"

I guess I was responding more to the knee-jerk reaction that some people have to get rid of Tay and Rip for its own sake. If it can legitimately be shown that they are over the hill and hindering a younger better player, then I'm all for it. I'm just not sure that we're really there, yet. Rip is still good enough to have been the team's leading scorer for the past few seasons. I don't care how many plays we run for him, you have to be good to be the team's leading scorer. I don't see anybody else on the roster capable of doing that yet. Stuckey might be close, but that's another debate.

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I would add that Reggie Miller and Bruce Bowen played as very effective starters for many years past Rip and Tay's current ages.